Hillary offers carrot, Kerry stick

United States has reverted to its old tactics of carrot and stick policy as two of its top leaders have reflected this in their latest contacts with Pakistan.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called President Asif Ali Zardari late Sunday and discussed present situation in the aftermath of the Abbottabad operation. According to official sources, the President apprised her of the concerns expressed by Pakistan’s Parliament over the operation.

According to TV channels, Hillary assured US support to Pakistan. Both leaders also discussed war on terror and the bilateral relations

Earlier, US Senator John Kerry, while speaking in Kabul, warned that relations with key ally Pakistan were at a ‘critical moment’ and maintained that there was disturbing evidence against Pakistan’s links with Taliban.

Shortly arriving in Islamabad, John Kerry called on Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and exchanged views on matters of mutual interest. Kerry, who has ostensibly come to pacify Pakistan over US raid in Abbottabad, was told by General Kayani that unilateral action against Al-Qaeda chief did not go well in Pakistan and had further widened the trust deficit between the two countries.

WASHINGTON: US Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Chairman Senator John Kerry visited Pakistan along with the list of demands and could use threats and offers to make demands meet, a report published in US newspaper said.

According to the US newspaper, Senator Kerry would try to use the threat of Congressional cuts to the $3 billion in annual American aid to Pakistan as leverage.

Kerry will also reassure Pakistani officials that they will be a central part of any political accord with the Taliban in Afghanistan, to ease their fears that India will take over large areas of Afghanistan as the United States pulls out.

He will also raise an issue of Pakistan's escalating production of nuclear fuel.

Members of Congress, in closed sessions, have complained that if Pakistan continued to escalate production of nuclear fuel then it would jeopardize the fundings.